Dipping Chips

After attending many craft shows lately, I've ended up with quite a few garlic dips. (This fact alone is pretty funny, right Kari? We are cool!) While with a few girlfriends last weekend, we sampled some chips at a food market...there happened to be a lady refreshing the bowl when I went back for 2nds and asked her how to make the chips...she happily obliged and gave me the "recipe." I'm calling them "dipping chips" because they are awesome with my all my garlic dips!

Dipping Chips
1 pkg. flour tortillas
Olive oil (EVOO for Rachael Ray readers!)
Sea salt

Pull the tortillas apart into chip size pieces. Brush with olive oil and grind sea salt over the top. Bake at 350 for 4-6 mins., until lightly browned. Cool before storing.

**The market had theirs cut in to Halloween shapes...they had used a cookie cutter to cut them in to little ghosts and pumpkins. I'm not that fancy.......yet!

Ham and Bean Soup

I've been busy trying new recipes, but haven't found a whole lot of winners lately....tonight I made this for the 1st time. It was really a mixture from a few recipes. It was pretty tasty, and smelling it cook was nothing short of amazing! This was also my 1st time soaking beans, which really wasn't anything at all... I'm not sure why the whole concept scared me so much!


Ham and Bean Soup
1 lb. dried, mixed beans...mine was a 17 bean variety from Trader Joe's
4 cans of broth, I used 2 chicken, 2 beef
3 cans of water
1 pkg. Lipton onion soup mix
1 ham shank, I think mine was about 1.5 lbs.
1 t. minced garlic
1 c. carrots
1 c. celery

Soak beans overnight. Drain and rinse. Put all in a big pot and bring to a boil. Simmer for at least 45 minutes or until beans are tender. Remove ham shank and shred the ham and put the pieces back in the pot. Yummy!

***I did take a ladle full and mash some of the beans in my food chopper to thicken it up...this was mostly for the children's benefit!